1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing an image-forming apparatus such as a display apparatus constituted using an electron source obtained by arranging many electron-emitting devices.
2. Related Background Art
A surface conduction electron-emitting device has conventionally been known as an electron-emitting device.
The structure and manufacturing method of the surface conduction electron-emitting device are disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 8-321254.
FIGS. 13A and 13B schematically show the structure of a general surface conduction electron-emitting device disclosed in this reference or the like. FIGS. 13A and 13B are a plan view and sectional view, respectively, showing the electron-emitting device disclosed in this reference or the like.
In FIGS. 13A and 13B, the electron-emitting device is constituted by a base or substrate 1, a pair of facing electrodes 2 and 3, conductive films 4, a second gap 5, carbon films 6, and a first gap 7.
FIGS. 14A to 14D schematically show an example of the forming process of the electron-emitting device having the structure shown in FIGS. 13A and 13B.
A pair of electrodes 2 and 3 are formed on the substrate 1 (FIG. 14A).
A conductive film 4 for connecting the electrodes 2 and 3 is formed (FIG. 14B).
The xe2x80x9cforming stepxe2x80x9d of flowing a current between the electrodes 2 and 3 and forming a second gap 5 in part of the conductive film 4 is performed (FIG. 14C).
The xe2x80x9cactivation stepxe2x80x9d of applying a voltage between the electrodes 2 and 3 in a carbon compound atmosphere and forming carbon films 6 on the substrate 1 in the second gap 5 and on the neighboring conductive films 4 is performed to form an electron-emitting device (FIG. 14D).
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 9-237571 discloses another method of manufacturing a surface conduction electron-emitting device.
An image-forming apparatus such as a flat display panel can be implemented by a combination of an electron source made up of a plurality of electron-emitting devices formed by the above manufacturing method and an image-forming member comprised of a phosphor and the like.
The conventional device described above undergoes the xe2x80x9cactivation stepxe2x80x9d in addition to the xe2x80x9cforming stepxe2x80x9d. The carbon films 6 made of carbon or a carbon compound with the narrower first gap 7 are formed in the second gap 5 formed by the xe2x80x9cforming stepxe2x80x9d. This provides good electron-emitting characteristics.
The manufacture of an image-forming apparatus using a conventional electron-emitting device suffers the following problems.
This method has many additional steps such as repetitive energization steps in the xe2x80x9cforming stepxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cactivation stepxe2x80x9d, and the step of forming a suitable atmosphere in each step. Management of these steps is complicated.
To use the electron-emitting device for an image-forming apparatus such as a display, the electron-emitting characteristics are desirably improved more in order to reduce power consumption of the apparatus.
Further, it is desirable to more easily manufacture the image-forming apparatus using the electron-emitting device at lower cost.
The present invention has been made to overcome the conventional drawbacks, and has as its object to provide an image-forming apparatus manufacturing method capable of simplifying particularly the electron-emitting device manufacturing process and also improving electron-emitting characteristics.
The present invention has been made by extensive studies in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and provides the following arrangement.
More specifically, the present invention provides a method of manufacturing an image-forming apparatus, comprising the steps of
preparing a first substrate,
forming a plurality of electrode pairs on the first substrate, each electrode pair comprising opposing electrodes,
arranging polymer films, each polymer film bridging between the opposing electrodes in each electrode pair,
irradiating each of polymer films with light or a particle beam to reduce a resistance of each polymer film and change at least part of each polymer film into a conductive film,
flowing a current between the opposing electrodes in each to form a gap in the conductive film, and
joining, in a reduced-pressure atmosphere, the first substrate on which the electron-emitting devices are arranged and a second substrate on which an image-forming member is arranged, via a bonding member.
As preferable forms, the image-forming apparatus manufacturing method of the present invention includes
xe2x80x9cthe conductive film contains carbon as a primary componentxe2x80x9d,
xe2x80x9cthe particle beam includes an electron beam or an ion beamxe2x80x9d,
xe2x80x9cthe electron beam has an acceleration voltage of 0.5 kV (inclusive) to 10 kV (inclusive)xe2x80x9d,
xe2x80x9cthe electron beam has a current density of 0.01 mA/mm2 (inclusive) to 1 mA/mm2 (inclusive)xe2x80x9d,
xe2x80x9cthe light includes a laser beamxe2x80x9d,
xe2x80x9cthe light includes xenon light or halogen lightxe2x80x9d,
xe2x80x9cthe method further comprises, before the joining step, the step of applying a getter to a surface of the second substrate in a reduced-pressure atmospherexe2x80x9d,
xe2x80x9cthe step of arranging polymer films is performed using an ink-jet methodxe2x80x9d, and
xe2x80x9cthe polymer film is formed from a material selected from the group consisting of aromatic polyimide, polyphenylene oxadiazole, and polyphenylene vinylene.xe2x80x9d
The present invention can greatly simplify the process, compared to a conventional image-forming apparatus manufacturing method which requires the step of forming conductive films, the forming step, the step of forming an organic compound-containing atmosphere (or forming polymer films on the conductive films), and the step of applying power to form gaps of carbon or a carbon compound. The electron-emitting device itself attains high heat resistance. Thus, electron-emitting characteristics, which are restricted by the performance of the conductive film, can also be improved.